The Nashua Area Radio Society (NARS) meets every first Tuesday except in August when there is no meeting. (Note that months where the first Tuesday falls on a holiday the two monthly meetings may be pushed out a week.) The monthly regular meetings typically feature a speaker from outside the club that brings something interesting from the ham radio community, the world of science and technology, or local interest. There is also a January Show-and-Tell meeting, and the Field Day planning and retrospective meetings held in June and July.

Here is a quick run-down of the presentations made to NARS over the last year.

We use the ionosphere for HF communications, but did you know that changes to the ionosphere can also affect GPS systems? Dr. Galkin described his groups work creating a system of Ionosonde stations to measure the ionosphere. And all this is done just up the road at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

Linear power supplies will eventually fail, but they can be repaired easily if you have a little know-how. George Allison walked through the design and theory of these devices and showed how easy it can be to get a dead unit back on the air.

The proliferation of digital radio hotspots using Raspberry Pi and Arduino computers has been astounding. Terry Stader walked through some of the advancements of the D-Star ecosystem and other digital radio platforms.

MIT Haystack Observatory

One of the nation’s premier observatories is located just miles from Nashua. Phil Erickson gave us a virtual tour of the facilities.

BITX and µBitX Transceivers

Ashhar Farhan, VU2ESE, created a very low-cost transceiver that could be constructed by anybody in his native India with commonly sourced parts. The designs became an instant sensation in the QRP radio community. (Farhan was recently inducted into the QRP Hall of Fame.) Andy Stewart gave us a good overview of the BITX and µBITX technologies and even showed us some extensions for the radio to support visually-impaired operators.

Working the ISS and Satellites

Here at the bottom of the solar cycle it is good to broaden your experiences. Fred Kemmerer gave an excellent overview of the basics of satellite communication, including working the International Space Station.

Nashua Emergency Coordinator

Communications is an important part of any emergency situation planning. Justin Kates briefed club members on the planning and preparation Nashua makes for any emergencies.

Plane Tracking with ADS-B

Most aircraft are now fitted with a system called ADS-B, part of the new system of anticollision technologies. Data is broadcast by each aircraft on 1090 MHz and that data can be received and decoded by a simple ground station you can build on a computer as simple as a Raspberry Pi. Thomas Kavanaugh gave the club an overview of this technology.

NARS holds a second meeting of the month a week after the club’s regular meeting. “Tech Night” is a chance for club members to exchange ideas and share their knowledge and experiences. Many of these meetings are captured in video and archived on the NARS website https://www.n1fd.org You can access the video collection here https://www.n1fd.org/video-collection/ Remember that you must be logged into the website to have access to these web pages and materials.

Building a Mobile HF Station

Video available

Kit building night

Paddlestick touch keyer by K1EL

Antenna Modeling I

Video available

Basic Kit Building Techniques

Video available

Portable Operating and Gear

Video available

All About Field Day

Video available

Raspberry Pi and Ham Radio

Video available

WSJT-X

Video available

DMR Radios and Programming

Video available

Frequency Measurement Challenge

Video available

Remote Operation

RTL-SDR workshop

Club members were encouraged to bring their SDR solutions to the meeting and either seek help from other club members or provide help to those seeking to get their systems running. There were many newly working SDR systems at the end of the evening.

NARS 2018 Meeting Topics

Date	Meeting	Topic	Presenter
January	Regular	Show-and-Tell	Club members
January	Tech Night	Building a Mobile HF Station	Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC
February	Regular	Global Ionosphere Radio Observatory	Dr. Ivan Galkin, UMass Lowell
February	Tech Night	Kit Build: Paddlestick Touch Keyer	Club members
March	Regular	Theory and Repair of Astron Linear Power Supplies	George Allison, K1IG
March	Tech Night	Antenna Modeling	B. Scott Andersen, NE1RD
April	Regular	D-Star + Bishop Guertin Robotics team	Terry Stader, KA1SCP, and students from Bishop Guertin High School
April	Tech Night	Kits	Steven Elliott, K1EL
May	Regular	MIT Haystack Observatory	Phil Erickson, W1PJE
May	Tech Night	Show and Tell	Club members
June	Regular	Field Day Planning Meeting	Club members
June	Tech Night	Field Day Skill Builder	Club members
July	Regular	Field Day Retrospective	Club members
July	Tech Night	Raspberry Pi and Ham Radio	Anita Kemmerer, AB1QB, and Jamey Finchum, AC1DC
August	Regular	** No meeting this month **
August	Tech Night	WSJT-X and FT-8	Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC
September	Regular	BitX40	Andy Stewart, KB1OIQ
September	Tech Night	DMR Radios and Programming	Bill Barber, NE1B
October	Regular	ISS and Satellites	Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC
October	Tech	Frequency Measurement Challenge: Ideas and Strategies	George Allison, K1IG
November	Regular	Nashua Emergency Coordinator	Justin Kates, KB3JUV
November	Tech Night	Remote Operation	Fred Kemmerer, AB1OC
December	Regular	Plane Tracking with ADS-B	Thomas Kavanaugh, KC1ELF
December	Tech Night	RTL-SDR Workshop	Club members